Health and Disability

If you are covered by Medicare, health care providers and hospitals send their bills for your care directly to Medicare.

A Medicare Summary Notice (MSN) is the quarterly statement that shows all the services or supplies billed to Medicare on your account, how much of the bill Medicare paid and how much you still owe the provider or supplier.

AARP has interactive tools called "decoders" to analyze your Medicare quarterly statements.

The study, published in the June issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, evaluated the condition of elderly patients 30 days after they underwent emergency surgery. Not surprisingly, it found these patients had a significantly higher risk of serious morbidity and mortality compared to younger patients.

What was surprising was that centers that provided high quality care for the young did not necessarily do so for the elderly. "This suggests that some hospitals put into place something unique that better addresses the needs of elderly patients," said Dr. Nathens. "What's put into place, however, is not quite clear."

60% of all the people surveyed want Medicaid to remain as it is - with guaranteed coverage from the federal government and minimum standards set for eligibility and benefits. 35% would like to see states receiving a fixed amount of money from the federal government, with each state deciding what services should be covered and who is covered.

Just 13% favor reducing Medicaid spending to bring the deficit down. While 30% say they would accept minor reduction, 53% are against any reductions whatsoever.

An article in the current issue of the journal Insight: Research and Practice in Visual Impairment and Blindness describes an integrated risk management program with multiple interventions. Interventions pertaining to 1) education, 2) medical assessment, 3) exercise and physical activity, and 4) home hazard assessment and modification have proven successful in reducing falls.

Another aspect essential to fall prevention is to strengthen collaboration across medical and rehabilitative services, public and private agencies, and providers who focus on issues of aging. Practitioners in various fields who are concerned with preventing falls among older adults need to be aware of issues related to medical, functional, and rehabilitative aspects of blindness and visual impairment as they pertain to fall prevention.

Slips and falls in the bathroom are a major cause of injuries to people of all ages. Properly mounted grab bars (installed directly into studs or wooden backing behind a wall) can prevent falls and are an inexpensive way to help ensure no one in your family gets injured in a preventable home accident.

A government report this week has documented a problem regarding the use of antipsychotic drugs in nursing homes. Too many of these institutions fail to comply with federal regulations designed to prevent overmedication, giving nursing home patients antipsychotic drugs in ways that violate federal standards for unnecessary drug use.

The report also found that these powerful, at times dangerous drugs were often prescribed for uses that are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and do not qualify as medically accepted for Medicare coverage. Potentially most alarming, 88 percent of the time these drugs were prescribed for elderly patients with dementia, a population the FDA has warned faces an increased risk of death from this class of drugs.

Thanks and a hat tip to John S.

After repeatedly correcting my mother, telling her she just ate, and watching her get frustrated or angry, I finally realized something had to change -- this something was me. I had to change......

Ricki Landers (pictured working out) wouldn't hear of it when an organizer of the "Free Our People March" from Maryland into Washington, D.C., asked only those with powered wheelchairs to continue the last 5 miles.

"John said he would push for me," she said, in case she got tired pushing her manual chair.

It was one of hundreds of protests the tireless activist for disability rights either joined or led, often times resulting in her arrest.

"I would rather go to jail than a nursing home,"

Healthcare in the past effectively meant “sickcare” and revolved around physicians and hospitals. But mobile and sensor technologies have the potential to make healthcare a truly personalised and 24 hour affair. Think Scrubs meets the quantified self.

Business as usual isn’t really an option for the healthcare system. 17 percent of U.S. GDP is spent on healthcare and McKinsey reports that healthcare spend in the U.S. is growing 2 percent faster than GDP per year, clearly an unsustainable situation. An aging population and soaring levels of chronic diseases all add up to a ticking healthcare time bomb. Technology can help.

Despite evidence that feeding tubes do not improve survival rates or quality of life for elderly patients with advanced dementia, their frequency of use varies widely across the states. A new survey of family members finds that discussions surrounding the decision to place feeding tubes surgically are often inadequate.